The invention relates to a honing machine comprising a device for the mechanical surface machining of workpieces by honing.
Honing is classified among the cutting production processes in which material removal takes place at the workpiece surface by means of a geometrically undefined cutting edge. For this purpose, honing sticks or honing stones in which the abrasive material is bound are provided in a honing tool. With the aid of the honing tool, which may be intended in particular for machining cylindrical holes, such as for example cylinder running surfaces, fine surface machining or finishing is possible. It is characteristic of honing that a rotary cutting movement is superposed by a translatory cutting movement. For driving the honing tool and for producing this cutting movement, a honing machine has respectively corresponding drive devices. The honing tool is usually arranged on a honing spindle, which transfers the rotary and translatory cutting movement produced to the honing tool. For receiving the workpieces to be worked, workpiece receiving devices are provided.
Various constructional concepts for devices for mechanical surface machining are known from the prior art. Known inter alia are circular-table machines, in which a circular table is used as a transfer device for transporting the workpieces between individual machining stations. By means of the circular table, which is rotatable about a vertical axis, the workpieces can be transferred from one machining unit to the next without having to be re-chucked. With circular-table machines it is possible for a number of workpieces in one chucking setup to be fed to different operations or for a number of workpieces to be simultaneously worked identically, depending on the machining units. For example, it is possible for workpieces to be milled, drilled and honed in one chucking setup.
In DE 101 60 280 A1 a description is given of a circular-table machine for mechanical surface machining which has an intermittently driven circular table on which a number of rotatable workpiece receiving devices can be arranged with a predetermined angular division. The circular table is arranged as a ring-shaped table or as an annular table around a vertical column on which a number of machining units are arranged, likewise with a fixed angular division. The machining units are respectively fastened circumferentially to the outside of the column above an annular table plane in an upper column region. The annular table is rotatably mounted on the column by means of a corresponding bearing in a lower column region and can be driven by means of an electromechanical rotary drive or a numerically controlled direct drive. Rolling bearings and/or plain bearings may be used as bearings.
Since the workpieces are arranged on the annular table for the production process by means of the workpiece receiving devices, but the machining units are fastened to the column, to achieve high accuracies in the surface machining it is necessary to align the annular table and the machining units precisely with one another both in the vertical direction and in the radial direction. This means that the positions of the machining units, in particular in the vertical direction, are dependent on the actual position of the annular table in the assembled state, and vice versa. The positioning or alignment of the annular table in the radial direction is also laborious, since the annular table must on the one hand be firmly connected to the column to take the force of its weight, but on the other hand is intended to be aligned as coaxially and concentrically as possible in relation to the column.